You don’t have time.

Don’t think you’re guaranteed another year of life. Not even six months. One more day? That’s not guaranteed either. You might not even make it to the end of today.

What a bright, optimistic way to view the world, right? Maybe it’s not, but it’s the truth. You’ll never know how much time you have left to live. But, one thing is certain, one day your run will be over. And surely that day will come much sooner than you ever would have imagined.

Knowing that today would be your last, how would you live it?

Chances are, you’d do things a whole lot differently if you knew today would contain your last breath.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully”. – Dr. Johnson

All the microcosmic BS we let infect our lives falls away when we know we’re inches away from death.

All the little things we previously complained about no longer matter.

What people think of us, what we own, our material possessions, our money, social status, how much we can bench or how jacked we may be—none of that matters once our heart arrives at its final determined beat.

Death has a way of dissolving all the trivial, insignificant matters and bringing our attention to what truly matters.

So act now. Don’t assume that the opportunities you have at this moment will be around forever. Go after it today.

You only get one life time. Then it’s gone in a blink of an eye”. – B.o.B

Life is short. You’re here for maybe 100 years if even that. Then it’s game over for you. Don’t wait for tomorrow. One day tomorrow won’t come for you.

Stop Living in The Past

99% of people are caught up in the past. They look to their past with sadness, regret, guilt, and pain. A great deal of a person’s life is spent worrying, complaining, making excuses, and wishing things were different than they are. I’ve been there myself.

I’ve had a rough past. Having had to work my way up from rock bottom to be where I am now, it’s been quite the intense experience.

I’ve lived a large amount of my life up until a few years ago in a near-constant state of fear. I’ve had body-image issues and extreme levels of insecurity. I’ve had zero confidence and gut-wrenching social anxiety. I’ve had no belief in myself and my potential. I couldn’t talk to people if my life depended on it. I’ve been an extremely negative person who would constantly criticize people. I’ve had countless disappointments and ruined expectations. I’ve felt destroyed by things I wanted to work out, that have crumbled to pieces. I’ve cried, probably thousands of times, just recalling all the times I struck out in baseball or lost at a game. I’ve felt heartbroken to the extent that I felt dead inside. I’ve had what I once considered the best days of my life quickly turn into some of the worst days of my life. Don’t think I’m exaggerating how bad it was. Life sucked. Hardcore.

Why am I telling you this? Because I’m sure you can relate to it. You’ve had experiences that have happened in your life that have caused a great deal of pain. Experiences that have been difficult to go through. Don’t hate the past. Don’t look at what has happened as a bad thing.

Instead, do the exact opposite.

Amor Fati (The Love of Fate)

The Stoics lived by a concept they called Amor Fati.

Amor Fati, the love of fate, means to not only accept what happens but to also love what happens. To love all things that happen, whether they may appear seemingly good or bad.

Since hearing of this concept, within the last year, it has been an essential part of my life. And I encourage you to make it an integral part of your life.

All that I’ve experienced in life, everything that has happened in the past—I mean everything—both seemingly good and bad things, I am grateful for.

Why? Because everything was supposed to happen exactly as it did.

As Ryan Holiday put it, “If it happened, then it was meant to happen, and I am glad that it did when it did. I am meant to make the most of it.”

The only reason I would be upset about my life or anything that has happened is if I failed to learn from it. If I chose to be ignorant and complain about how life sucks, instead of finding the lesson contained within and changing myself.

I view every experience in my life as something that benefits me. I believe that all things contribute to my advancement. That means all the seemingly good things and also the bad. All of it. They all contribute to my advancement. So really, all things that happen are good, because I will either learn a valuable lesson I wouldn’t have known otherwise or It will generally be a positive thing.

We cannot control or change what happens, but the greatest, most empowering thing of all, we can control: what meaning we give to the experience.

We can control what the event, the situation, the experience means to us. We determine whether this is something that is good or bad. Even what people would consider bad, I see as something good. As something that happened to send us a message.

You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you” – Harold Kushner

The death of someone close to you can either cause you to wallow in your sorrows resisting life and wishing things were different, wishing they were still here. Or you can be grateful for having been a part of their lives and see it as a message to appreciate the people in your life right now that matter the most to you. You have a choice. You choose what everything means.

I can tell you that if I died today, I wouldn’t want anyone to grieve over me. No, I’d want people to see it as a good thing. Be grateful for it if you choose to. Attach a positive meaning to the event. See it as a call to appreciate the people that matter most to you. Tell them how much they mean to you while you’re both still here.

If my life was over I’d want people to continue living their lives. Don’t mourn for me. Go live your life. Enjoy it. And while you’re here, make someone else’s life better. Make a difference. That’s what I want. The absolute last thing I’d ever want is for people to cry over me, missing me, and thereby losing out on their life. And I believe the people you were close to that have already passed, would say the same thing.

Are you going to let external events outside of your control affect your life and strip you of any power you had? I can tell you, if you do this, your life will be a pain.

You don’t have to follow after social conditioning and allow external events to derail your life and destroy you. Everybody is going to die. Life is constantly changing. Not a single second that passes is exactly the same as the one that preceded it. Change is constant. Death is certain. Accept the natural course of life. Accept what happens. And choose what everything means to you.

You control your interpretation of the world and what everything means to you. You can give everything a negative meaning and make your life awful. Or you can interpret all things in a positive way and attach a positive meaning to the experience. Your happiness and the quality of your life depend on which one you choose.

Live Now

The truth is we’re all living on borrowed time. One day your time will run out. You can’t get an extension. You can’t buy more time. You’ll never know how much time you have left, but it’s guaranteed that one day your time will be up.

Are you living in a way that if you were to die today you’d be content with accepting the reality? If not, you better change while you still have the chance.

Each day you wake up is a gift. You’re guaranteed an end to your life. You don’t know when that day is. So, each morning you wake up alive, be grateful for that.

Choose to live in alignment with whatever happens in life. Choose to live with Amor Fati ingrained in your heart and mind. Choose to accept and love whatever happens in life. When faced with challenging times, choose to find an empowering meaning behind the experience. View all things as good. Interpret every experience in your life as a good thing. Accept and love all things that happen. Love fate; Amor Fati.